Nathan Bernier

Host, All Things Considered

Nathan Bernier a KUT reporter and the local host during All Things Considered and Marketplace. He grew up in the small mountain town of Nelson, BC, Canada, and worked at commercial news radio stations in Ottawa, Montreal and Boston before starting at KUT in 2008.

Nathan has won numerous journalism awards including a National Edward R. Murrow Award, Texas Associated Press Awards, Lonestar Awards from the Houston Press Club, and various other awards and recognitions. Nathan's hobbies outside work include producing music and enjoying Austin's many food and drink establishments.

President Obama is scheduled to speak at 3:15 pm CST today about a potential terrorism plot being investigated on three continents. The scare involves suspicious packages shipped on cargo planes from Yemen to the United States, reports Philadelphia's ABC affiliate WPVI.

The investigation included two planes at Philadelphia International Airport. Officials tell Action News that a total of six packages were removed from the planes there.

Two days left until kids will be knocking at your door requesting candy in exchange for not "tricking" your house with toilet paper. But the parties aren't waiting till Sunday. They start tonight and last all weekend.

Bicycle enthusiasts are reacting with glee to an Austin City Council vote yesterday that approved a deal to build ten miles of bike lanes in Austin.

The deal between the city and the Texas Department of Transportation will see the two split the bill for $1.1 million. TxDOT's share of the cash is coming from the federal government's Transportation Enhancement Program.

“We have a critical need for about 100 election workers,” Travis County Clerk Dana DeBeauvoir said in a media release. “We’ve recruited quite a few precinct judges who are new to the process, and they need help finding clerks to work with them.”

texas

4:47 pm

Thu October 28, 2010

A scare at Texas A&M University this afternoon after a bus driver called police and reported what he thought was a gunman carrying an AK-47-like weapon.

A&M campus police issued an alert and instructed students to "shelter in place". Uncertainty swirled for about an hour, as police searched for the reported 'gunman'. Adding to the concern was the scheduled ribbon cutting involving Fmr. President Bush Sr., his wife and daughter-in-law.

2010 midterm elections

3:53 pm

Thu October 28, 2010

It's a secret trick of the news business. Nothing interesting to report during an election campaign? Commission a poll! Congratulations, you just bought yourself a front page story.

Polls can have news value: they help voters understand trends and feel the direction of political winds, but not all polls are created equally, even if the media tends to report on them as if they were.

The Burleson County District Attorney has dropped murder charges against Anthony Graves. Graves had been behind bars for nearly two decades for the murders of six people in 1992 in Somerville, TX, a small town of about 2,000 just an hour-and-a-half east of Austin.

We are still years, perhaps even decades away from being able to hop on a high-speed train and travel to Dallas in less time than it takes to read the A Section of the New York Times.

But today, the Texas Department of Transportation says we are one baby-step closer to that possibility because of a chunk of cash the state was awarded in the latest round of US Department of Transportation high-speed rail grants.

Wed October 27, 2010

Austin Police Officer Leonardo Quintana was fired for a second time today, less than a week after an arbitrator reinstated him to the force.

The "indefinite suspension" - a bureaucratic formality that amounts to being fired - stems from an alleged domestic dispute at Quintana's home in Leander. Quintana didn't inform his supervisors that he was involved in an incident that required a police response.

Austin Police

2:01 pm

Wed October 27, 2010

Earlier: Austin Police officer Leonard Quintana finds himself on the hot seat once again today. He's facing a disciplinary hearing that started at 1 p.m. and could result in him being fired from the force for a second time.

politics

12:07 pm

Wed October 27, 2010

A South Texas lawmaker has been found guilty of multiple crimes in a case involving allegations that he sold access to the legislature. The Austin American-Statesmanreports the jury returned a verdict this morning for State Rep. Kino Flores (D-Mission).

If you've driven past Dean Keaton and Guadalupe Streets recently, you may have noticed a new building going up in the northeast corner, on top of what used to be a parking lot.

That building will eventually house KUT, along with classrooms, labs and offices for the University of Texas College of Communication. The photo-op ground breaking was held back in March, and progress appears to have been steady ever since.

KUT is in the middle of broadcasting a weeklong series about the US space shuttle program. NASA is retiring the shuttle in early 2011, and we are reporting on what the program has meant to Texas and what its cancellation will mean for our future.

photography

3:23 pm

Tue October 26, 2010

KUT photo intern Chris Kosho made this cool time lapse video of Lady Bird Lake, but he is certainly not the first person to highlight Austin's beauty using the videographic technique. Here are five cool time lapse videos of the ATX worth checking out.

Local media is swarming around the Travis County Criminal Justice Complex this afternoon for the first day of jury selection in Tom DeLay's trial on money laundering and conspiracy charges. DeLay is the former-Republican House Majority Leader who is accused of conspiring to launder $190,000 in corporate cash to political campaigns. DeLay insists he's innocent.